Summary: His family shattered before his eyes, the first time he ever took a life. The events that would steal Dante's innocence, making him the hunter he is today...

Disclaimer: I do not own squat. I know the twins, but I cannot claim ownership over them. Only the almighty Capcom can dare to do that, which is reasonable. They own the games, after all.

Two Sides, Same Coin

I can see them, see them as clearly now as I could then, all those years ago. Dead or alive, time does not pass for one such as I. Such pain, such unbearable agony, I felt upon seeing this. I, the guardian of their Human World, who was unable to protect them.

My name is known to you. Think upon that, and do not ask me that again.

I shall share with you now…the memories…

The events that would forge him into a son of which I could be forever proud…

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"Dante! Vergil! Stay where I can see you!"

Eva waited patiently until two silver-haired boys, each a mirror-image of the other, raced back into view. They were laughing, playing tag with each other, taking full advantage of the freedom offered by the park. So full of energy were they these days, Eva could barely keep up with them anymore.

She returned to her book, a new title by her favorite author. The twins continued chasing after each other a while longer, ducking around trees and through the bars of the jungle gym, until Dante sprang at his brother, tackling him to the ground. They wrestled, each trying to gain the upper hand with a flurry of kicks, tugging, and boy's punches, rolling along on the grass until at last Vergil pinned his younger twin.

"Say it!" he demanded. "Say I'm the best!"

"Never!"

"Say it!"

"No!" Dante heaved his body to the side, taking his brother with him for the ride. Gaining the upper hand once more, he scrambled atop his twin, making sure to brace himself so Vergil couldn't roll him to the side, as he had a moment ago. "Now you say it! Admit I'm better then you!"

"No!" Vergil struggled, but both brothers new that this time Dante had persevered. But neither would ever surrender to the other, never admit defeat.

Never surrender.

Vergil suddenly relaxed, and Dante inadvertently loosened his grip a little. He stared down at his brother with a gloating, mocking smile. "Giving up?"

"No way." With a sudden snap of his lithe young body, Vergil threw Dante off of him. He stood up, brushing off the blades of grass he'd collected. "You didn't seriously think I'd make it that easy, did you?"

His brother got up, then barreled into him, pulling no punches this time. Vergil retaliated, and soon the boys were fighting in earnest, hitting and kicking and calling each other every name they could think of.

"Bug-brain!"

"Snot-head!"

"Potty-mouth!"

"Scumbag!"

"Boys!" Their mother was suddenly there, physically pulling her sons apart. "Stop this right now! Stop!"

"He started it!" Vergil tried to lunge at his brother, but Eva had too firm a grip on his collar for him to break it.

"Tattle-tale." Dante made a rude face at his twin.

"Now that's enough!" She looked at them sternly. "Can't you be nice and not fight with each other? Or do I have to take you both home right now?"

They hung their heads. Dante kicked at a stone off to the side. "We can be good, Mom."

"Yeah. We won't fight anymore."

Eva had to smile. Although she sometimes felt like she'd had it up to here with them, she loved her sons more than anything else in the world. She would do anything for them.

She just wished they wouldn't fight so much.

She knelt before them, so she could look them in the eyes, and took their hands. For a moment, she studied each pair intently, examining every inch as if searching for something. "Look at your hands," she finally said. "Do you see what I see?"

The boys examined their hands carefully, peering closely at their own and each others' with the same intensity their mother had. "The fingerprints are the same."

"Exactly." Eva laid her hands against their cheeks, making them look at her. "You are twin brothers, identical halves of one whole. Do you know how wrong it is for the halves to fight against each other? Do you know how much it hurts me to see that my sons cannot seem to help fighting with each other, as if they hated each other?" She looked into each pair of blue eyes, trying to make them understand. "I'm asking you now, as your mother. Please, don't fight anymore today. I hate it when the two of you fight like this. Can you do that for me?"

The boys exchanged glances, then simultaneously threw their arms around their mother's neck in a reassuring hug. They had upset their mother, and now they wanted to apologize in the best manner they could. "We'll be good, Mom," Vergil said.

"We won't make you sad. No more fighting today." Dante tightened his arms a little more, to prove that he was sincere.

Eva smiled, and hugged them back. "Thank you, my sons. It means so much to me, that you do not fight."

They stayed that way a little longer, until a most unwelcome voice intruded upon their private moment.

"Well, lookit at the happy little family, Mitch. And them two always braggin' at how tough they are." There was a spitting sound behind them, and a harsh laugh. "Softies, they are. Though I guess I can see how, when they ain' got a daddy anyways. Their momma couldn' hold onto a man if she wanted to!"

"Look like mama's boys to me, Ricky." This voice was higher pitched, more whiney than the first, but equally unwelcome.

"Mama's boys! Mama's boys! Mama's boys!" they chanted mockingly.

Two heads jerked up, and Vergil and Dante glared at the other two boys with daggers in their eyes. Eva let them go and went back to the bench, where she'd left her book. She didn't like it when her sons fought, but it was hard not to be flattered when they were defending her honor.

Besides, she had had to apologize to their victims' parents and the school principals before. If nothing else, she knew that they could take care of themselves in matters like this.

Vergil squared off with Ricky, and Dante with Mitch. If there was anyone in this world the twins truly loathed, it was these two. Ricky and his crony, his brother Mitch, had been the bane of their existence ever since they had started school six years ago.

"You dare to make fun of our mom?" Vergil gave a meaningful look to the bullies' mother, who sat on another park bench, smoking a cigarette and scratching at the curlers in her greasy brown hair. He sniffed derisively. "At least our mother isn't puffing like a smoke stack."

"And she actually takes a shower. No air fresheners or hair curlers needed," Dante added.

"Hey, you can't make fun of our momma like that!" Ricky took a swing at his silver-haired adversary, but Vergil sidestepped the clumsy punch, and the bigger boy overbalanced. Vergil helped him accomplish a total faceplant by kicking his feet out from under him, and Ricky went sprawling.

Mitch had likewise thrown a ham-fisted punch, but Dante had ducked it. The force of his swing had spun the weasel, and when he came back around, Dante planted a foot hard in his groin. Mitch fell heavily to the ground, curled up as tight as he would go, biting back tears. Dante dusted off his hands with his customary smirk. "Too easy."

But Ricky wasn't finished yet. He got to his feet, and grabbed a thick stick from the ground. With a wild scream, he charged Vergil. The stick was mostly blocked or missed completely, but it did score a few hits, and one resounding crack against the younger boy's jaw knocked him to the grass, dazed.

Ricky had raised the stick for an overhead hit, one Vergil didn't think he could find the strength to block, when the bully staggered as someone jumped on his back. Ricky did his best to shake him off, but Dante clung like a stubborn leech. He grabbed for the stick, and Ricky responded by running backwards and slamming him into a tree.

"Ullfff!" The hit knocked the air out of him, but Dante didn't let go. Two more slams, however, were enough to get him off. Defenseless, Dante could only watch as Ricky picked him up by the throat and held him against the tree's rough bark. He gasped for breath, and hoped that the bully would let him go soon.

But one look into Ricky's brown eyes dismissed that notion. He had no idea of stopping this time. His grip tightened, and dark spots began obscuring Dante's vision.

Suddenly, the pressure was gone, and he dropped heavily to the tree's roots. As the darkness cleared and he coughed hard, gulping down welcome mouthfuls of air, he saw Ricky being violently shaken at the end of a vast, meaty arm.

There were rumors that Ricky and Mitch's mother had once been an Olympic-class weight-lifter and a champion at the hammer-throw. The ease with which she held and shook her huge son nearly a foot off the ground seemed to verify that claim beyond any doubt. She was a big woman, but there was definite muscle hidden beneath the fat.

"I'll tan your hide, I will! I'll beat you so you can't sit down 'till next month! First you kill the dog, and now you've moved on to your schoolmates? I'll learn you good this time, Ricky! See if I don't!" she ranted in a voice made deep and rough by years of chain-smoking. "And Mitch, you don't get off so easily either! I'll beat you black and blue!"

"Dante!" Eva was there an instant later, frantically examining him for injury.

"I'm fine, Mom." He didn't say anything more. It hurt too much to talk.

"Sorry 'bout that, Eva. Your other boy told me what my boys were doin' over here." She shook Ricky again, so hard his teeth clacked together. "You got good boys. I can't leave mine alone for a second without them getting in trouble!"

"Thank you, Regina. I'm just glad Dante is all right." Eva gently touched the raw-looking fingermarks on his throat. At least the injuries wouldn't last long. Due to their father's blood, her sons could heal almost any injury much faster than any of their peers. Still, that didn't mean she couldn't help the process a little by getting his mind off it. "Come on, Dante. Vergil!" He came running to her call. "Let's go. I think we need some ice cream for that throat. Besides, we still have to go grocery shopping."

"I am sorry, Eva." Regina had but Ricky down, but she kept an unbreakable grip on him. "My boys are turnin' out to be just like their daddy. Good-for-nothing louts and bullies, always picking on critters smaller than them."

"It's all right, Regina. Maybe after the beating you give them, they won't bother my sons anymore."

"You can bet your boots they won't!" Regina jerked Ricky over to where Mitch lay, pulled him off the grass. "Come on, both of you. You two have an appointment with the switch!"

Dante and Vergil couldn't help but smile as their opponents kicked and screamed and cried, dragged on by their mother's relentless grip.

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Queen: Welcome to my very first fan-fic, now fixed and resubmitted for your viewing approval! I've tried to tie this fic in with a lot of things speculated about from the manga and novels and games, and this is what I came up with. Sorry if this Eva doesn't really mesh with the Eva of others, but hey, only Dante and Vergil can tell us what their mother was like.

Vergil: You would have liked her. I can tell you that much.

Dante: For a first-timer, Queen actually didn't do so badly. Of course, she had us to help her work out some details…

Vergil: But not everything will tie in with the novels. The two villains, for example, are most definitely not in the games and books. You'll see what we mean in the next chapter.

Dante (shudders): I swear, that woman gives me the creeps…

Queen: Then put on a coat and don't read my fics over my shoulder. Anyway, please leave a review in the appropriate place. Gotta go now!

(transmission ended)